For the next few days, Captain Zhou and his crew were catching tens of thousands of pounds of fish daily, yet it wasn't enough to meet demand.
During this time, more merchants approached Ye Feng, eager to collaborate.
This delighted Ye Feng, but unfortunately, his production hadn't ramped up yet, and he couldn't supply the vast quantities of fish required.
Furthermore, after several days of intensive fishing, Ye Feng noticed that the quality of some fish had begun to decline.
This was because the earlier fish, which had more time to absorb the Sea God's Power, were being caught and sold. The later arrivals were captured before they could fully absorb the power, resulting in a noticeable difference in taste and efficacy compared to the earlier catches.
Consequently, Ye Feng didn't immediately agree to the merchants' proposals but instead took time to strategize his next steps.
Around this time, the chief engineer overseeing the construction project in the Shitou Island sea area informed Ye Feng that the project on the island was completely finished.
Upon hearing this, Ye Feng rushed to inspect it.
Arriving at the site, Ye Feng was extremely satisfied with the quality of the construction, noting that all necessary facilities and equipment were in place.
After the inspection, Ye Feng remained alone on Shitou Island to ponder.
He realized that his greatest selling point was the Sea God's Power emanating from the Sea God Hall, and he needed to leverage this effectively.
Initially, he had considered abandoning any plans for aquaculture, as he believed the Sea God's Power from the Sea God Hall would naturally attract all nearby fish.
However, his observations over the past few days indicated that this idea was entirely impractical.
The fish attracted by the Sea God Hall were a mixed bag, with the vast majority being common species. While abundant and low-cost, their value was correspondingly low.
Therefore, Ye Feng concluded that cultivating premium, high-value seafood was the true path to wealth.
After a day of contemplation on Sea God Island, Ye Feng finally devised a brilliant plan.
Since the fish that absorbed the Sea God's Power from the Sea God Hall not only developed exquisite flesh but also possessed miraculous properties that could alleviate or even cure ailments, he decided to establish a tiered aquaculture system centered around the Sea God Hall in the Shitou Island sea area. The more valuable the seafood, the closer its cultivation pen would be to the Sea God Hall.
This proximity would ensure they absorbed more Sea God's Power, thereby increasing their value.
The mere thought of this idea excited Ye Feng immensely. He immediately contacted the chief engineer and presented his proposal.
The chief engineer was quite perplexed by Ye Feng's plan, as the design seemed counterintuitive for aquaculture.
However, he was unaware of Ye Feng's vision or the miraculous nature of the Sea God Hall.
Under Ye Feng's persistent insistence, the engineer reluctantly agreed, and together they devised a plan.
Centered around Shitou Island (essentially, the Sea God Hall, as it was built directly beneath Shitou Island), they would construct twelve interconnected, concentric aquaculture pens.
These pens would form a circular barrier around the Shitou Island sea area, with each pen being one hundred meters wide. The twelve pens would thus create a radius of one thousand two hundred meters.
Each aquaculture pen would be further divided into eight zones. The more valuable the seafood, the closer its zone would be to the Sea God Hall, maximizing its potential value.
As for the wild fish attracted by the Sea God's Power emanating from the Sea God Hall, they would be housed in the two outermost pens.
This arrangement would ensure the most effective utilization of the Sea God's Power.
Without delay, Ye Feng ordered the commencement of construction, which incurred an additional cost of over ten million yuan.
This expenditure caused him considerable pain. While he understood the cost of constructing buildings on Shitou Island, he couldn't comprehend the expense of building the sea enclosures. Upon inquiry, he learned the reason.
The metal materials and isolation nets required for the sea enclosures had to be resistant to saltwater corrosion. These were the latest technological metals, extremely expensive.
Combined with the substantial size of the enclosures Ye Feng intended to build, the cost had escalated to over ten million yuan.
Ye Feng calculated that his initial capital of over forty million yuan had been reduced to just over twenty-three million yuan after spending over twenty-five million yuan on the buildings on Shitou Island and the sea enclosures.
In the past week, his fish sales had averaged around thirty thousand pounds per day, at thirty yuan per pound, earning him nearly seventy million yuan.
"I've barely built anything, and most of the money is gone. It seems this amount is far from enough!" Ye Feng muttered to himself.
However, Ye Feng quickly shook his head. "Forget it! Let's stick to the plan for now! We'll figure out if we need more later!"
The residences on Shitou Island were now fully constructed, resembling a small city, awaiting only residents, or rather, his employees.
With this thought, he immediately called Chen Xiaoyue, instructing her to begin recruitment. He also asked her to lease a building in Dongchuan City to serve as the second base for their Sea God Company.
Meanwhile, Ye Feng planned to start acquiring various fish fry to commence his aquaculture operations.
Ye Feng first considered what to cultivate. With the Sea God's Power emanating from the Sea God Hall, he didn't need to worry much about environmental suitability or survival rates.
Therefore, he decided to focus on cultivating the most expensive and highest-quality seafood to fully leverage the Sea God's Power.
With that in mind, Ye Feng began researching the world's most expensive seafood, such as French blue lobsters, Australian lobsters, and bluefin tuna.
Ye Feng identified dozens of the world's most precious seafood species. Since he only had twelve aquaculture pens, with the two outermost reserved for the attracted wild fish, there were only ten pens available for cultivation.
Consequently, Ye Feng decided to cultivate one species of seafood per pen. He ultimately selected ten species from various categories to procure their fry or broodstock for farming.
For the first pen, due to its smaller size, Ye Feng planned to cultivate the most precious and rare blue lobster.
Blue lobsters are a mutated species, occurring perhaps once in two million individuals. Their rarity makes them highly prized, and an adult specimen can fetch over a million yuan.
For others, the appearance of blue lobsters is purely a matter of mutation, making cultivation impossible.
However, for Ye Feng, with the Sea God's Power at his disposal, this was not an issue.
For the second pen, also relatively small, Ye Feng decided to cultivate the yellow-lipped fish, as it couldn't accommodate too many or too large a species.
The yellow-lipped fish, also known as the golden-mouth croaker or golden-mouth sea bass, is a unique species to China and is considered a superior tonic. Its swim bladder, commonly known as "fish maw," is particularly precious, often described as "worth its weight in gold."
An adult yellow-lipped fish can be as valuable as a blue lobster, sometimes even more so, with prices generally exceeding a million yuan.
The third pen, larger than the previous two, would be used by Ye Feng to cultivate the Chinese spiny lobster.
This lobster has a distinctive appearance, with a greenish-blue body, black and white limbs, and numerous yellow spots, making it vibrantly colored. They typically weigh between three to six pounds.
Once mature, they could easily fetch three to five hundred thousand yuan.
For the fourth pen, Ye Feng planned to cultivate the Canadian geoduck clam, the most expensive species of geoduck. It's said that at its peak, the price could reach 12,000 yuan per kilogram.
However, these creatures live in the muddy seabed, and Ye Feng would need to construct simulated environments to cultivate them, which would be somewhat costly and challenging.
For the fifth pen, Ye Feng pondered for a long time before deciding to cultivate a species that is extremely picky about its living environment...